Fear not

OUR DEEPEST FEAR

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,

gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking

so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.

It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give

other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our fear,

our presence automatically liberates others.

-       Marianne Williamson

Many of you are probably familiar with this wonderful poem. I thought it might be a good follow-up to my previous blog post about leaving our comfort zones.

Funny thing, how we minimize and belittle ourselves sometimes without even realizing we’re doing it! It’s so easy to listen to the voices of others and almost unconsciously think that they know more about us than we do about ourselves. It’s such a temptation to give power to people we consider “authority figures” or “mentors” when they are just human beings like ourselves.

The fact is, we’re more than human, and even if we think we have no particular spiritual inclinations, if we ponder the matter deeply enough, we’ll see that there actually is something very grand and wonderful inside us. There’s a little voice in there telling us who we really are. But sometimes it scares us.

I had a wonderful friend many years ago, an extraordinarily talented bass player (I swore I would never find another like him, and I never have), who was also a heroin junkie and an alcoholic. I watched as he slowly destroyed himself — it was like watching an angel tearing off its wings, feather by feather. Somehow he managed to live to be 50, but he could have lived much, much longer. I once asked him why he took drugs and drank, and he said, “I’m afraid of my own talent.”

So there you go . . . let’s not be afraid of our own talents. Let’s honor them, cherish them, develop them and never, ever be afraid of being wonderful and excellent. Remember, it’s only natural, and it’s our native state. Let’s be comfortable with that. Fear not.

The Lesson

“You can do it son, you will do it…”

Said his papa sternly, picking him up,

Arms akimbo, legs flailing,

“The other boys can do it, so can you…”

The tears fairly jumped from his eyes

As he fought his papa to no avail.

Out at the end of the long, long dock,

The dark, surging water was waiting

To swallow him up forever.

Klomp, klomp, klomp

Went his papa’s boots on the wooden slats.

He closed his eyes, covered them with his hands

As papa heaved him off the end of the dock,

And he fell, down, down, down,

Into the cold black wetness,

Flapping his arms helplessly

Unable to rise, sinking further down,

Leaving a few small bubbles on the surface.

His papa stood there looking down.

“Move your arms, son, don’t be a sissy…”

But all was still, ominously still.

Then his papa called to a friend to come quick,

He didn’t even stop to take off his boots,

They both jumped off the end of the dock,

Down deep, deep, deep and pulled him out,

Shaking, sputtering, gasping for air.

Little Bobby never did learn how to swim.

(For my pop, Robert David Duncan)

Fear of thunderstorms

I was terrified of thunderstorms as a kid, especially after we moved to our house in Connecticut, which had lightning rods on both the house and the huge old oak tree on our property. These rods actually attracted the lightning to the house and then into the ground for safety, so we were always getting hit and it was very LOUD.

One day there was a storm and I was walking down the stairs from my bedroom. Suddenly lightning hit the fuse box outside the house exactly where I was on the stairs. It was deafening and frightening and after that I was more scared than ever.

And as if that weren’t enough, our Springer Spaniel Sam was afraid of thunderstorms, too. He was essentially and outdoor dog, and when there was a storm he’d run round and round the house, barking like mad and scratching at the front door to get in. We’d finally let him in and he’d nearly wag his tail off in relief.

In the summertime when we were vacationing on Seneca Lake in New York state, there were lots of storms. During one of them I was out in an aluminum rowboat with my sister Bertie and my cousins and I was sure we were going to get struck by lightning. I reasoned that if the boat was metal, surely the lightning would head straight for it! It didn’t, and we got in safely, but I mentally chalked up one more reason why thunderstorms gave me the jitters.

One day in Connecticut, my sister, mother and I were visiting our neighbor Mrs. Moore when a violent storm hit. We waited inside the house until it seemed to have stopped, and then Ma said goodbye and got up to leave, with me and Bertie tagging behind. As soon as she opened the door and stepped outside, a big lighting bolt came down right in front of her and struck the ground. Yikes! Ma wasn’t hurt, miraculously, but we all stood there trembling and it took us quite some time to calm down.

Funny thing, I always thought Ma was really brave because she seemed to be totally unafraid of storms and chided me and Bertie for being so nervous about them. But after the incident at Mrs. Moore’s I realized she’d always been afraid of them, too, but had tried to keep up a good front so that we wouldn’t be afraid. She gave herself away, I now realize, by constantly talking about ways to protect ourselves and the things in our house from lightning (Never go barefoot! Unplug all the appliances in the house! The safest place in a lightning storm is in the car because you’re sitting on rubber tires! And on and on…). Even though I eventually got over my fear, Bertie followed those instructions to the letter at the first thunderclap for the rest of her life.

Are you or have you ever been afraid of thunderstorms?

Gym class…why me?

When I was in high school we had gym class every day. That’s right, every single day of the week. I hated it with a passion. I used to pretend I had my period twice a month so I wouldn’t have to join in, and I hoped that the gym teacher, Miss Anderson, wouldn’t notice.

We had to wear short blue jumpsuits with elastic “bloomer” legs and I thought they were ridiculous. Then we had to play all sorts of games that I despised, including baseball, and worst of all volleyball. I was always afraid of injuring my hands and not being able to play the piano.

But the worst things of all in gym were tumbling and jumping over the vaulting horse. I didn’t like doing somersaults because they made me dizzy, and I was too short to pull myself up on the horse. The parallel bars were almost as bad.

We had to spend an hour every day doing this stuff, and then after we were all sweaty and smelly we’d be rushed into the gang shower. What high school girl isn’t self-conscious about her body? Well, I was short and scrawny. I couldn’t see anybody else because I was nearsighted, but I just knew they were all looking at me and snickering.

Poor Miss Anderson. She knew I hated gym and tried everything she could think of to get me interested in something…anything, but I never cooperated, and when she finally got the bright idea to turn me into a cheerleader, I actually burst out laughing. A CHEERLEADER? Me? My little intellectual friends and I always used to turn our noses up at cheerleaders, and she wanted me to BE one?

But here’s the thing: secretly I was fascinated the tough, tomboy girls who were really good at sports. I had absolutely nothing common with them, but I admired their strength and skill. Not that I would ever admit it to anyone, of course. I just kept walking around with a chip on my shoulder, which I’m sure didn’t completely hide the fact that I was just plain scared of most sports.

But Miss Anderson, bless her heart, just pretended that she didn’t notice I had my period twice a month, and always let me sit on the sidelines without a word.